Accesing data in a data object works the same way in document-level projects for Microsoft Office Word as it does in Windows Forms projects. You use the same tools and code to bring the data from an object into your solution, and you can use Windows Forms controls to display the data. In addition, you can display data by using host controls. Host controls are native objects in Microsoft Office Word that have been enhanced with events and data binding capability. For more information, see Host Items and Host Controls Overview.

You must complete three basic steps to populate the document with data from an object:

Add a control to the document that you can bind to data.

Add a data object to the document.

Connect the data object to the BindingSource.

Starting in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1), you can bind data to controls on documents or worksheets in application-level projects. If you do not have SP1 installed, you can bind data to controls only in document-level projects.